There’s Poisoned Water in West Virginia. The EPA Hardly Seems to Care.

This week’s episode of Adventures in Deregulation brings us to West Virginia, where the Mountain State Spotlight’s Sarah Elbeshbishi has been bulldogging a story about poisoned water in the Ohio River, an extremely frustrated judge, and the comatose watchdog that is the EPA under the barely distinguishable leadership of Lee Zeldin. From the MSS:

"Those pollutants endanger the environment, aquatic life, and human health,” U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin wrote in the order. “Today, that unlawful, unpermitted discharge stops. The West Virginia Rivers Coalition asked Goodwin in February to require the former DuPont, now Chemours, Washington Works facility to immediately comply with its permit limits after violating it for more than five years. The coalition’s request came after the group initially sued Chemours in December over the violations.

In Thursday’s order, Goodwin wrote that the Chemours’ Washington Works facility “boldly violates” its permit, and must meet its permit limits until the full case is heard later this year. “[Chemours] knows that it has been violating its permit, and it is likely to continue,” Goodwin wrote. “As a direct result, the public is exposed to real and ongoing harm."

And the real kicker is that the company admits that it is violating its permit.

Since 2019, the Washington Works site has violated its permit limits by discharging higher than allowed levels of pollution, including PFAS, or ‘forever chemicals,’ into the Ohio River, which supplies drinking water for more than five million people. Chemours has acknowledged the plant has violated its permit limits. But they argue that they are working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to address the issues. The federal agency issued a 2023 order to require the company to address its violations, but the EPA hasn’t given final approval to Chemours’ plan.

Oh, I'm sure they'll get around to it. Meanwhile, there's more radioactive shrimp out there for your Labor Day barbecues. From WSOC:

The recall affects shrimp distributed between July 17 and August 8, 2025, to retailers, distributors, and wholesalers in Alabama, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, and Washington state. The FDA is investigating the contamination linked to PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati in Indonesia. No illnesses have been reported so far. The FDA’s investigation into the contamination is ongoing, focusing on shipping containers and frozen shrimp products processed by PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati in Indonesia. The exact source of the Cesium-137 contamination is not yet confirmed.

I'm sure they'll get right on that, too.